Daniel Suarez becomes 1st Mexican driver to win NASCAR Cup pole

By DAN GELSTON

Associated Press|

Jul 28, 2018 | 7:49 PM

|LONG POND, Pa.

Daniel Suarez made NASCAR history when he became the first Mexican driver to win a pole in the elite Cup series.

The milestone comes with a bit of an asterisk: Suarez earned the top spot for Sunday's race at Pocono Raceway because the times of front-row starters Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch were tossed out because their cars failed inspection.

Advertisement

Suarez had qualified third but officially starts his bid for his first career Cup win from the pole.

"It feels good because we haven't been running well lately," Suarez said. "I feel like this is just the beginning of the weekend. The real business is (Sunday) and we have to keep this rolling."

He was the "El campeon!" of NASCAR's developmental series.

But the 2016 Xfinity Series champ failed to produce similar results when he was abruptly bumped to Cup on the heels of the stunning departure of Joe Gibbs Racing fixture Carl Edwards.

The 26-year-old Suarez has yet to win a Cup race in 56 career starts and has only two top-five finishes. He's 20th in the standings in the No. 18 Toyota and will likely need a win to earn an automatic berth into NASCAR's playoffs.

"The results of my race team has been pretty bad the last few months," Suarez said. "When things are going bad, you have to work even harder."

Suarez began racing karts in Mexico and moved to North Carolina as a teenager to pursue a career at NASCAR's national level. He had to teach himself English by watching cartoons on American television and moved through NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program to land a job with JGR.